JavaTV has had great standardization success in MHP and MHP-derived standards, such as OCAP and ACAP in the United States, and ARIB B.23 in Japan. In the United States, most commercial activity is around the CableLabs OCAP specification, which is tailored to digital cable television. In an OCAP network, Java applications (also referred to as xlets) may be associated with a television service (often referred to as a television channel). These associated Java applications may be referred to as “service-bound xlets”. For example, a service-bound xlet may be a program specific application such as an application deployed with a game show that allows viewers to play along at home and an application that provides interactive information about a sporting event. Other sample categories of service-bound xlets include advertisement applications, delivery of customized information, and voting/polling applications.
For digital services, service bound xlets are transported and received using DSMCC object carousel signaling. DSMCC object carousels carry file systems using MPEG packets and are therefore usable only with digital television services. The system software residing on a set-top box identifies and authenticates the presence of the service bound xlets present in the digital television service. In OCAP, this can optionally be mediated by a monitor application provided by the Cable operator. The service bound xlets are launched to provide the desired xlet application.
On many cable networks in the United States, a large number of services are still broadcast as analog services. In addition, analog services continue to be broadcast over-the-air. Although analog services require greater bandwidth than digital services, analog services can be received on legacy analog cable television receivers, including analog cable-ready TV sets and videocassette recorders. As a result, many popular services such as ESPN, MTV, CBS, and NBC are often distributed as an analog service. These popular analog services are also delivered over current hybrid digital/analog cable systems. In one typical setup, analog/digital set-top boxes capable of interactive services using OCAP can only provide service-bound xlets for the digital services.
Since JavaTV xlets distributed using DSMCC object carousels cannot be received on analog services, there is therefore a need for improved methods and apparatuses for receiving service bound xlets for analog services.